Drowned
by Christie
Summary: Sequel to 'Drowned' in Chapter 2! She met him after the escape because she needed to escape too. SaraMichael
1. Drowned

Title: Drowned  
Author: Christie  
Genre: Prison Break (Michael/Sara)  
Rating: K+  
Spoilers: None specific; general through 1x03 'Cell Test'  
Summary: She realizes he hates everything he did, but he loves his brother more.

Notes: This is **post-escape speculation ** fic. I don't read spoilers, I don't know anything for sure, it's going to be wildly AU after a few more episodes I'm sure. Since it's mostly character-driven rather than plot-driven, it probably doesn't matter. The last ep I've seen at the time of this writing is 1x03 'Cell Test'.

* * *

His voice is deep, roughened by sleep or lack of, she can't tell which. Gravity laces its edges, and she inexplicably pictures the cocky new prisoner who walked into the infirmary only a month ago. 

A month that was in fact, a lifetime. Everything has changed since then; all because of one man. It's surreal, and grasping onto it will take her, she thinks, more time than she has. Maybe she agrees to meet him (chartered flight, three days, double back) in spite of the absurdity. Maybe because of it.

Maybe 'be the change you want to see in the world' didn't turn out to be so earth-shattering. Maybe life had stalled. Maybe she hates her father. Maybe she loves Michael.

Maybe.

This won't end well.

And yet she goes.

Michael looks as hard as she feels. He lost weight in those last days; he's angular now. She wants to slap his face, call the cops, but he trusts her and he knows she won't. He hugs her. She doesn't hug back.

Her heart squeezes a little at his touch. He's warm, clean, smells like soap and sea salt. This is someplace people come to be happy. She wants to be happy too, but not quite enough to try. Not yet.

First thing he says: "I lied to you about being diabetic."

It's guilt; she's already figured that part out and says nothing.

His breath tickles the bare skin at her neck for a brief second before it's gone. He pulls away, steps aside to let her in and his hands slide into his pockets. She realizes it's the first time she's seen him outside of prison blues. Chinos, white t-shirt, bare feet. He could be on vacation, only he's not.

She should be happy. She can't. The door shuts behind her with a click and Michael engages the dead bolt. "I didn't know if you'd come."

His eyes are on her, she can feel it, but she doesn't look back. She's afraid to get lost.

Maybe be happy.

"I want to understand," she says.

The catch in her voice is noticeable enough to make her wince and bite her lip. Enough to make him step closer, hands out of his pockets. It's instinctual comfort, she knows. She doesn't want it.

Michael stops inches shy of touching her. "My brother didn't kill that man," he says. He speaks loudly, the tone that says 'I'm telling the truth, you have to believe me.' "He was set up and we're going to prove it. I just had to get him out before they killed him. I had to save him. It was the only option I had left."

The young man who walked into the infirmary thirty days ago had an air of calm that both intrigued and unnerved her. Prison gnawed at him, bit him down to the white of his bones and replaced arrogance with fury. Michael paces while he talks now. Fists clench and don't begin to loosen until she catches him, fingers skimming over taut knuckles.

Michael stops explaining the prison break. He realizes she doesn't want to understand the escape. She's figured it out by now. Motivation, plan, execution. What she hasn't figured out is _him_.

His jaw moves, loosens. He lets his fists out, works the kinks in his fingers. She follows the movement with her eyes. He has long, elegant hands. She noticed from the beginning.

He takes her touch as an invitation. Says her name behind his teeth and touches her shoulder, first with his fingers and then with his whole palm. She feels the heat of the blood pounding through his veins beneath the fabric of her shirt. He's coiled, tense. An animal let loose from a cage and unsure of which direction to run.

He says, "I'm sorry," she means it. She sees it in the sorrow in his eyes; it trickles down his entire face like tears.

Michael comes off as detached and unemotional but she figured out from the beginning that when he does connect himself with someone, it's affecting. She wants to go to him, say its okay - it'll all be okay - because that's what their relationship has been about. She's been the caretaker; always in control because she wasn't the one locked up. She didn't have real monsters in her closet.

Now, she's not so sure.

Instead, she steps away from his touch; looks at the place where his palm grazed her as if it's separate from the rest of her body. She feels the tears then, unstoppable even when she squeezes her eyes shut - and he catches her when she turns away.

"I was a means to an end," she says, voice cracking. She hates that she's losing control.

She hates him.

He says, "No," and it doesn't convince either one of them.

Michael was never a serious option, never a possibility. She knew that. She was rational, and a grown-up, and she knew they could never be together. She got lonely at night, but everyone does. Michael Scofield was a prisoner, end of story.

Until she walked back into the infirmary after being called away on a wild goose chase and Michael Scofield and Lincoln Burrows were gone.

Everyone gets lonely. Everyone longs for human touch.

She turns around, uses her fists to push him away. He's gotten too close. She hates him for seeing her like this. Hates him for everything because really, it begins and ends with him.

Michael takes two steps back at the force of her shove. Or he goes on his own, she isn't sure she'd have the strength to really move him. Her eyes skim the tattoo on his arms. It makes sense now, except not really.

"You used me," she spits, sounding angrier than she really is. She's really just tired.

Michael nods slowly; and as pain flickers over his face she realizes he hates everything he did, but he loves his brother more. For each action there is an equal and opposite reaction. She almost falls with the weight of it all. Knees buckle and Michael is there, arms covered in ink slipping around her torso, helping her back up. She closes her eyes against the onslaught. She feels nauseous.

Michael helps her to the bed and she sits, ready to bolt. The door, the bathroom, whichever. She tips her forehead into her hands. He rubs her back. She lets him. It's his turn to be the caretaker.

Minutes, hours - they're all ticks on a clock that don't really matter now - and she loses track. Her eyes blur with tears, clear, then blur again. Michael doesn't say anything. They're sort of past the talking stage, she knows. Everything they say is bullshit anyway. Thoughts flicker through her mind and then scatter, the way fish glint orange at the surface of the water for a second and then disappear into the murky depths of the lake.

_Where's Lincoln Burrows? And the rest of the prisoners? What will they do now? Forever?_ She realizes they've put their forever hopes into solving this conspiracy. But you do time for breaking out of prison, and Michael's crime to get _in_ was very real.

She thinks she should go. She should run without stopping. She wonders how far she'd have to go to forget Michael Scofield.

Michael leans forward and puts his mouth against her shoulder. She feels his teeth pressed against her shirt, the same place he burned her earlier with his palm. He says, "I never meant to hurt you. I didn't know I'd start to feel - "

He stops talking, leaves his mouth where it is. His breath is warm and she sort of likes the pressure there. There's no reason for him to finish his sentence. She knows he was going to say 'this way' and saying it begs the question 'what way'. It doesn't matter what way. He just broke his brother out of jail. She's kind of scared to realize she's probably as fucked up as he is.

She's terrified.

She takes his proximity and uses it for leverage. Pushes herself back and finds the side of his head. Presses her lips against his temple before finding his lips.

She tastes her tears mixed in with the kiss. She'd told herself she wasn't going to cry.

She'd told herself she wasn't going to come, either. This won't end well.


	2. Sequel: Broken

Title: Broken  
Author: Christie  
Genre: Prison Break; Michael/Sara  
Rating: K+  
Spoilers: None  
Summary: She met him after the escape because she needed to escape too. Sequel to Drowned.

* * *

He sleeps spread out, practically diagonal across the bed. At 1:30 in the morning, Sara's too tired to wonder whether it's some sort of psychological rebellion to being relegated to a four foot by six foot bunk in his cell. After an hour of gentle nudging that turns into desperate pushing in attempt to get him back over to his side of the bed, Sara gives up completely and swings her legs over the side of the mattress. 

Bare feet hit the plush carpet with no sound and when her slight weight lifts off the mattress, Michael doesn't move. His breathing deep and even, Sara stands watching for a moment, unwilling to berate herself any more for what has happened.

In the sparse light filtering in from a gap in the hotel-heavy curtains, Sara finds her shirt and jeans and puts them on. She stuffs her bra into her bag. She thinks briefly about Elizabeth, her college roommate who came home many mornings with her bra in her purse.

Sara contemplates leaving as she stands in the middle of the room, sloppily dressed, bag in her hand. She stares at the gap in the curtains, can tell the light filtering in is the artificial yellow of a street lamp, not the natural white of the moon. She refuses to look at Michael again. He may sway her decision.

She opts for the bathroom, taking her bag with her. The fluorescent light casts dark shadows under her eyes and gives her complexion a sallowness she hopes isn't really there. With what she's been through the past few days and the fact that she doesn't seem to sleep anymore, Sara wouldn't be too surprised to learn this is just her now.

There's a brush in the bottom of her bag and she pulls it through her hair almost angrily. The tangles are there because of Michael, her shirt is wrinkled because of Michael, her bra is in her bag because of Michael. Everything is because of Michael and that likely includes the dark circles and pasty skin.

Part of her hates him. Really hates him. Michael Scofield got under her skin deliberately, for whatever reason, and continued to pull the strings. He succeeded in everything he tried to do, including seducing her, and Sara has no one to blame but herself. She knew it was happening from the beginning. She knew it was happening last night. Michael was methodical - chipping away at her defenses the way he chipped away at his cell until he finally broke through.

And she knew the whole time. Sara doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. She stares at herself another minute, two, and forces herself to stop asking how and why. She let Michael break her because she needed to be broken. She met him after the escape because she needed to escape, too.

She sort of hates him, though.

She sort of loves him, too.

* * *

When she steps out of the bathroom the clock glows 2:52 and the bed is empty. Sara sees the dark shape of him almost exactly where she stood and debated her escape. 

"Are you okay?"

His voice is gruff and he seems sleep-heavy; confused. She speaks softly because it seems like she should.

"I'm fine. Can't sleep."

It's a half-truth; she's sure she'd have faded into some kind of oblivion if Michael had given her more room on the bed, but its pointless to make him feel bad about it. She doesn't sleep well anymore, not for a while now, and a few hours at a time in the amount of space that might be afforded to a cat should seem like a luxury.

Michael has replaced his pants but not his shirt and Sara can see the dark smudges that represent the tattoo. The room is mostly shadow and the ink is darker still, making Michael look as if he's cloaked in a soft blanket, only his face and neck uncovered.

"You should go back to sleep," Sara says, because how easily they fall back into their roles.

But Michael shakes his head and steps closer, reaching out and taking her bag from her shoulder. "Did I ruin your escape?"

He's trying to sound light but failing miserably - Sara hears the hurt lacing his tone and represses the urge to reassure him. He doesn't get reassurance. _He _owes _her_.

"I hadn't decided," she says honestly.

Michael moves closer, each hand ghosting up to encase both her shoulders.

"Don't," he says huskily, and Sara has to avoid his eyes. If she looks into his eyes, she won't. If he asks her again, she won't. If he says her name, she won't.

Two fingers tilt her chin up, forcing her eyes to his. He blinks earnestly and says, "Sara…" and then leans in and kisses her.

She might stay forever.

END


End file.
